A German police report describes surprising find during a traffic control in Berlin. A Mercedes transporter was loaded with pieces of a cut up Tesla Model S. The truck had parts of the frame and the whole battery pack loaded.

The driver of the transporter registered in Lithuania told police he bought the parts in Amsterdam. He presented them a fake invoice. A check of the frame parts revealed that this Model S was stolen in the Netherlands on the weekend.

The driver was arrested on charges of dealing in stolen goods. It must be heart-breaking for the Model S owner to find out that the thieves cut his or her car up. This is not some sophisticated heist like in a movie. The Tesla got cut up to be used for parts and not for reassembly.

A big reason why the Tesla was destroyed by the thieves is its integrated always on GPS tracking. Tesla cars have a very low theft rate. This case is rather unusual. It is unclear how the thieves managed to steal the Model S in the first place.

In each case, the key fobs weren’t stolen and the vehicles not trackable, which means that the thieves either have an unknown sophisticated way to start and drive the car, or they managed to quietly tow it.

The leading theory is that they were quickly dismantled for parts.

It’s not a secret to anyone that there are sophisticated networks of car thieves out there who manage to make vehicle vanish and reappear half-way around the world – in one piece or not.

Again, Tesla’s always-on advanced GPS tracking feature can deter some of those thieves, but apparently not all of them.

Today, the German police reported that they stopped a truck at the border coming from the Netherlands. The vehicle had several Tesla Model S parts in the back, including a whole battery pack: